Step It Up!--the Rhetoric, Anyway

Submitted by Paul Ellis

The silliness continues from the Sierra Club as its staff deploys over-the-top invective in support of the group's Step It Up! campaign. They're kicking off the drive, evidently, by stepping up the rhetoric.

In an Earth Day guest editorial in The Seattle Times, Aaron Robins and Tim Gould of the Sierra Club's Cascade Chapter describe the Regional Transportation Investment District's Blueprint for Progress proposal as "an Eisenhower-era roads package that drives us the wrong way on climate change impacts and community planning"; having construction of any new roads "shackled at the ballot to the Sound Transit Phase 2 proposal," they contend, is "like trying to lose weight while consuming triple-fudge sundaes with your whole grains--one negates the benefits of the other."

Paul Ellis is lead staff for RAMP; an employee of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, Ellis led the Pierce County Transportation Advisory Committee (PCTAC), the community's largest transportation planning effort.